


my love, we're made of the same old stuff

by geode



Series: for others! [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, I hope this makes sense with all the fkn backstory idek, M/M, don't go cold turkey on your unhealthy coping mechanisms, dramatic gays, first rule of insomnia club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geode/pseuds/geode
Summary: When they were roommates they would always watch movies together when neither of them could sleep. Combeferre had thought proximity was something of a qualifier.





	my love, we're made of the same old stuff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lapoesieestdanslarue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapoesieestdanslarue/gifts).



> hope you like it babe! sorry it's late, I haven't been sleeping lately lol

 

Combeferre is writing a paper when the message comes through; he's not waiting, exactly, but there's a sense of inevitability in the way he doesn't even bother finishing his sentence, just stops and stares blankly at the pinboard above his desk. His shoulders drop, muscles loosening like something had been keeping them together unconsciously.

 

_What does this mean?_

 

Maybe he'd been restraining himself all this time. Maybe he'd really gotten over it, maybe this was just a setback. Maybe--

 

Maybe it was the damn phone company.

 

But he knows, somehow, that it's him.

 

It feels sort of like giving in, but to what he isn't gonna think about. He taps the nib of his pen onto the desk until he realises it sounds like a clock counting down to his decision, and there's no point in that at all; it's not like he was ever gonna do anything but what he'll do.

 

He leans back in his chair and exhales, flipping his phone screenside up next to his open textbook.

 

**Enj [01:19]**

**wanna come watch a movie?**

After a long moment, he types out, _I've got to sleep._

 

He deletes it. _I've got to finish this paper._

He deletes it. _We don't_ _live together anymore._

 

His phone pings again.

 

**Enj [01:23]**

**the social network**

 

Combeferre puts his pencil down and cracks his thumb joint to see if that will change the situation at all.

 

Finally, at half past one, he replies.

 

_Really?_

 

Enjolras opens the door in his work clothes, tie half-undone like he'd started to take it off and been immediately distracted, which is just like him. It's so like him that it feels like a punch in the stomach, because Combeferre used to be on the other side of the door, the one to remind him about his tie.

 

"That's probably why," Combeferre nods at his attire; Enjolras startles.

 

"What?"

 

"Your-- those trousers, they can't be comfortable enough to relax in, let alone sleep."

 

Enjolras looks down at himself in surprise, and Combeferre has a dissociated urge to laugh. 

 

"Oh," he says, and retreats into the flat leaving the door open.

 

His place doesn't look any different to how it looked the day before yesterday when he was over with Musichetta for an outlining session, but it's still weird: he doesn't think he'll get used to it anytime soon. (And God, he's being such a brat about this. It's not like they were fucking _dating_. It's not like he's not still his closest friend. He's being selfish.)

 

There are books everywhere, _natürlich_ , and not in any sort of aesthetic arrangement, or at least not deliberately; the hallway is two feet narrower than it was on move-in day due to the leering piles hugging each wall. There are fewer crusty mugs around though, which is noticeable to say the least. Enjolras'd evidently reached the back of the cupboard at last and been forced to hunt them all down to wash. 

 

His degree is hung above the sofa. It looks incomplete without Combeferre's matching one beside it.

 

"D'you want a drink?" Enjolras calls through from his bedroom.

 

"Sure," he answers as he sits down heavily on the sofa. "Do you have--"

 

"Yep," Enjolras interrupts him, reappearing in one of his more ridiculous pairs of pyjamas. He smiles quickly, like huffing out an involuntary laugh. "You... you put the disc in."

 

_Guess we're not gonna talk about it then._

Five minutes later he hands Combeferre a mug and plops down beside him, and Combeferre presses play, and Mark Zuckerberg starts talking rapidly in the darkness.

 

Combeferre wraps his fingers around his drink, burning his skin but in that good way where the heat spikes through your nerves and for a split second you feel very present. He brings it to his lips and just inhales the scent, however destructive that may be. In for a penny and all. It smells of lavender, chamomile, duvet evenings, damp floorboards after coming back from a hike, the phantom of smoke from the stove. It smells of home. The home that doesn't exist anymore.

 

The tea spills over the rim and onto his sleeve. "Shit," he mutters, and in trying to mop it up he spills more on the sofa cushion next to his leg. " _Shit_. Sorry."

 

"You okay?" Enjolras asks.

 

"Forgot how strongly this stuff smelled," he lies smoothly, and Enjolras laughs.

 

"Yeah, God, every time."

 

"Have you had it--?" Combeferre starts, but stops himself a shade too late to not sound pathetic.

 

Enjolras clears his throat, eyes sliding back to the TV screen. "Nah," he says dismissively. That could mean anything.

 

Zuckerberg runs across campus. Combeferre takes a sip, and tastes everything he'd let slip away.

 

 

They get right to the frat party scene before one of them breaks. This in itself is surprising; despite the apparent unspoken pact to not talk about any of this, there'd been a tension in the room ever since Combeferre had half-asked his needy question and Enjolras had half-answered.

 

What's even more surprising, however, is that it's Enjolras who breaks.

 

"Why is this weird," he asks in his office deadpan.

 

Combeferre blinks and almost turns to face him before realising _he_ hadn't turned to say it, and everything's by design. He rigidly fixes his eyes on the screen.

 

"Is it?" he tries weakly.

 

"C'mon, Ferre."

 

He swallows. "I. I don't know."

 

"Bullshit, you do know. You always know." His soft midnight tone contradicts his aggressive word choices.

 

"I'd hardly say that."

 

"I would."

 

_The master of the angry compliment._

Combeferre steels himself as best he can when he feels three feet from his own body. "I think it's weird precisely _because_ we're not talking about it."

 

"What's to talk about? We've done this hundreds of times."

 

"Yeah, before."

 

"What's different now?"

 

"Enjolras."

 

"What?"

 

"Enjolras, we don't live together anymore."

 

It hangs in the air between them. What it comes down to. The text he didn't send.

 

"So?" Enjolras asks. And the innocent sincerity in his voice makes Combeferre's _heart_ hurt.

 

"Can you give me a minute?" he asks.

 

 

He stares himself down in the bathroom mirror and tries to make sense of everything, although at this point he'd settle for anything. One thing's for sure, he shouldn't have come. That's playing along.

 

"You idiot," he says to his reflection, but it's not frustration in his voice but pity. He's not even on the same page as himself.

 

Christ. Nothing's been the same since October.

 

Maybe it would've been alright if he hadn't had the damn lavender tea. It was their thing, their latenight fucking tradition -- it had no right existing outside of that era.

 

"Ferre?" Enjolras' tentative voice drifts through the locked door. Combeferre puts his head on his hands. "Are you okay?"

 

"I'm fine."

 

"That has never once in linguistic history meant someone's okay. Just, just so you know."

 

Combeferre smiles despite the pounding of his heart.

 

Enjolras seems encouraged by that, and his voice is more sure when he next speaks. "Look, I shouldn't have asked you to come over, I'm sorry."

 

"Why did you?"

 

Pause.

 

"I couldn't sleep."

 

"You can never sleep. Why today."

 

Pause.

 

"Enj? Are _you_ okay?"

 

"I'm fine," he replies with just an edge of dryness layered on the admission. Combeferre reaches for the door handle but stops himself. This'll never get sorted without a fucking plank of wood between them, they're so damaged.

 

"Okay," Enjolras mutters on the other side. "Fucking shit. Okay."

 

Combeferre looks at the door expectantly, brow furrowed enough to make him notice he'd even done it.

 

"Truth is I haven't been sleeping so well since I came here. I thought at first it was maybe just settling in, new vibes or whatever, but then it just... kept on going. One of the reasons I moved was 'cause I thought it might help with-- But I just can't. It got to the point where every night I'd be fucking opening up my messages and staring at your name trying not to crack. I. I just. I miss it. I miss you, Ferre."

 

"Why didn't you say something?" Combeferre replies raggedly, resting his forehead against the cool wood of the door.

 

Enjolras laughs self-deprecatingly. He sounds very close like this. "It's embarrassing how much I need you."

 

"Why did you really move, Enj," his tongue blurts before his brain can shut it down.

 

This, too, hangs in the air. Here and now, Combeferre can't remember how he believed it was ever about the fucking commute.

 

When he answers, it's barely a whisper, less than a foot away. "I thought it'd be easier on my heart." Combeferre's exhale is shaky. "It's funny, all this time I thought you were the reason behind it, but you were just making it slightly less unbearable."

 

"Funny," Combeferre agrees hysterically. He rolls his forehead across the door to feel every protrusion in the wood, every imperfection, every atom of this moment. His hot breath clouds his face as it bounces back to him, smiling an inch from the surface like he's slowly melting through to the hallway.

 

_You idiot._

 

He flicks the lock and swings their barrier away. Enjolras is standing swamped in his penguin pyjamas with his hair a good five centimetres more voluminous than earlier from hand-raking. He looks like isn't quite breathing.

 

It's three thirty seven in the morning, so Combeferre manages to wrench out the question he's never dared, with anyone. "Enjolras, what do you want?" 

 

And it's three thirty seven in the morning, so Enjolras manages to wrench out the truth. "I want things to go back to how they were in October."

 

"Ah," Combeferre replies. "I don't. Not exactly."

 

Enjolras starts at that, first a dash of horror in his eyes and then realisation. A grin blooms across his features.

 

"You--?"

 

"Nah," Combeferre grins back, and lurches forward to wrap his arms around Enjolras' neck. He hugs him tightly, and feels warm hands on his lower back, and it's the first time he's felt grounded in a month.

 

 

 

"God, I want to sleep," Enjolras mumbles into his neck when they're still embracing in the hall minutes later.

 

" _Mich auch_ ," Combeferre mumbles into his. He feels Enjolras smile into his skin.

 

"How do I know you're not just using me for my brilliant tea collection?"

 

"Guess you'll have to trust me."

 

 


End file.
